Are Miniature Books the New Smartphone?

...y. Loeb books are handsome, small and sturdy hardbacks with English on one page and Latin or Greek on the opposite page. Marcellinus is an entertaining Roman historian whose extant books chronicle the tumultuous years around the time of Constantine. So far it’s even more lurid than the updates on our current presidential election I get when I glace at the iPhone. Yes, you can read books on a smartphone, but I still think that the medium of a paper...

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Lead in Backyard Eggs: Don’t Freak Out But Don’t Ignore the Issue

...n this study since we found elevated lead levels in our soil when we did a series of soil tests back in 2011. Thankfully our egg results came in at 1.02 ug, just under the average level in the study. You’d have to eat a lot of eggs as an adult to go beyond the Federal Drug Administration’s maximum recommended lead intake level, though you could bump up against it if a child ate more than three eggs a day. I’d suggest that if you live in an older u...

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What we think about when we try not to think about global warming

...tlessly, for us to wake up and change our ways for the last 40 years. So in 2011 he gave up on us and wrote 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years. It was not, as he said, a description of an attractive future. He’s a doomer’s doomer, yet in the introduction he says, “This book gave me back the hope I’d lost over forty years of futile struggle.” So, if Stoknes can help me, Brigitte and Jorgen, maybe he can help you, too. Stoknes is organiza...

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Primitive Grain Storage Technique

...ran across this minimalist grain storage technique on the BBC documentary series, A History of Celtic Britain (2011), hosted by Neil Oliver of the Delicious Scottish Accent. (I am watching it on YouTube. Fingers crossed the BBC will not take it down before I finish it!) I love this technique because while it is simple, it is far from stupid. The technique is described by the Dave Freeman of the Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire, where they’ve been...

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Fermentology: Mini Seminars About Cultured Food

...istory, biology and even something called “zombie medicine.” Join us for a series of short talks (20 minutes on average, some shorter, some a little longer) for anyone hungry to engage in food, culture, history and science–but in the context of what you have at home. This project is sponsored by the Department of Applied Ecology at NC State University, the NC State University Libraries and the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics at the University...

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